The first Bayern crisis, the first Augsburg home win, the return of the "Foals", the comeback of the champions. An action-packed Bundesliga weekend delivered many new, interesting storylines and also confirmed one ancient tenet of our football culture: nostalgia is the equivalent of a 40m backpass to the goalkeeper. A regressive, counter-productive exercise.

In Germany, the past lost most of its allure after the second world war and never quite recovered. "After the game is before the game," was former Germany manager Sepp Herberger's famous mantra. The whole country, by and large, adopted a similar pragmatic, unromantic outlook, being all too wary of the dangers posed by those who idealise yesterday at the expense of tomorrow.

German football can be a little unforgiving in that way. Just ask poor Lothar Matthäus, whose sensational achievements as a player count for precisely zero. Harking back to the glory days only becomes permissible on a few special occasions every year, and only in geographically well-defined pockets in the west of the Bundesrepublik. When it's derby time.

Matchday 14 had two derbies in store and thus a double dollop of the usual build-up. No Köln versus Gladbach preview was complete without the DFB Cup final 1973 anecdote, when Borussia's long-haired, Porsche-driving, disco-dancing Günter Netzer came on as a sub on his own volition ("I guess I will play now") and scored a cracking winner with his second touch of the ball. Even more golden moments were recounted in the run-up to the Ruhr derby between Dortmund and Schalke. S04's defender Friedel Rausch getting bitten by a police dog in 1969 was probably the pick of the bunch, both in light of the victim's identity and the reaction of BVB legend Aki Schmidt. "Those animals were very intelligent," Schmidt is cited in Gregor Schnittker's new book Revier-Derby: Geschichte einer Rivalität (history of a rivalry).

The problem was that neither game could even remotely live up the expectations those bouts of nostalgia had raised. In fact, they were hardly games at all in the sense that only one team turned up in each meeting. "It was the most one-sided derby anyone inside the stadium could recall," wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung after Dortmund's 2-0 win over the sorry Royal Blues. "No derby atmosphere, no excitement, no meeting of equals," concurred WAZ. Dortmund, who played their customary pressing game, were good. But Jürgen Klopp's men only appeared utterly superior because Schalke were so rubbish. "We showed everything that's bad in football," said sporting director Horst Heldt, "it was football to fall asleep to."

They were never in it at all, to be sure, no chance of note was created. The lonely strikers Raúl and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar saw so little of the ball that they might as well have watched the game on television. "We played like a team of school boys," said the coach, Huub Stevens, "two or three players playing at their normal level is not enough." The Dutchman might have been generous there. Only S04 keeper Lars Unnerstall performed convincingly to prevent more damage or an "execution", as Lewis Holtby put it. Robert Lewandowski and Felipe Santana scored for the hosts, who are back at the top, back to playing their coy "we don't want to talk about the title" game. "Bayern are still favourites, by a distance," Klopp said before the Bavarians' slip up away to Mainz on Sunday. "We'll just keep doing what we're doing and see what comes out at the end."

"What comes out at the end," also succinctly summed up the quality of Köln's offering against the gallant "Foals" of Lucien Favre on Friday night. "It was incredible, the derby in Cologne was almost more boring [than the one in Dortmund]" wrote NRZ. "The whole match was a demonstration of Gladbach's supremacy and so disillusioning for all FC supporters that many of them gave up on the second half and left the stadium after an hour." They did not miss much, to be fair. The visitors were already leading 3-0 by that stage, courtesy of a brace from the outstanding Mike Hanke and Juan Arango's free-kick.

The Arsenal scouts who were reportedly sent to eye up Lukas Podolski must have cursed their luck. The 26-year-old was a peripheral figure, along with the rest of his team, but sought to distance himself from his colleague's mistakes. "It's the same old story, one for which I'm not responsible," said Prinz not-so charming.

Hanke and Marco Reus (who played with a broken toe) even had time to play a round of scissors papers stone to sort out who would take a free-kick. "Köln never had chance," said Reus, while his team-mate Dante refused to entertain thoughts of European football next season. "We want to get 40 points as quickly as possible," said the Brazilian. "Nobody talks about Europe, not even on the bus. We're thinking only from game to game," added Hanke.

Twelve months ago, Gladbach were bottom of the table with 10 points. Now, they're second and celebrated as "Borussia Barcelona" and "Glanzbach" (Glanz = glamour, shine) by the tabloids. Perhaps we should have suspected their sensational revival as early as February, when the former Borussia defender Berti Vogts sniped that sporting director "Max Eberl got his job because he happened to pedal past on his bike" - few people in football have such an uncanny knack for getting things so consistently wrong as the ex-Germany coach. Eberl, 38, has in fact had a major hand in the rebuilding process.

Next week, the renaissance of one the Bundesliga's best-loved clubs will be put to the test in yet another westside derby, the derby of the two Borussias. It'll be first against second, Klopp against Favre, Götze against Reus. "It's inconceivable that this game should be boring or over after 60 minutes," wrote WAZ. They better not jinx it with a look at "The 10 best Borussia derbies" now.

Talking points

• "Everywhere I go, I see you. I breathe you. Know that I can't get over you, because everything I see is you." Yes, Bayern fresh from their 1-0 loss to Dortmund, must have felt a terrible sense of Deja Vu when they were confronted by Thomas Tuchel's high-pressing, Duracell-powered Mainz machine on Sunday. The hosts stayed deep in the opposition half and converged on the man in possession like a pack of 3D piranhas on Kelly Brook's behind. "The idea was that Bayern should not have fun here," said the Mainz general manager, Christian Heidel. That was a good idea. Unnerved by the constant harassment and still bereft of their fulcrum Bastian Schweinsteiger, Bayern were unable to dominate possession and looked fairly pathetic. Their only clear-cut chances, fittingly, came from dead-ball situations. Daniel van Buyten even scored two goals, filling in as a make-shift striker. But that wasn't enough in the light of some awful defending (1-0 Ivanschitz, 3-0 Bungert) and a rare mistake from Manuel Neuer who went down in instalments to let a 30m shot from Caligiuri creep past him. "We simply didn't put everything in today," said Philipp Lahm. Just like Beyoncé, Jupp Heynckes did not want a substitute either, at least as far as Arjen Robben was concerned. The Dutchman spent 90 minutes on the sidelines but was apparently not quite fit to play anyway. The fall to third in the table will bring plenty of disquiet to Säbenerstrasse in the next few days. The good news, however, is that Bremen, 2-0 winners over Stuttgart, will visit the Allianz Arena on Saturday. They don't do tactical, defensive stuff, usually, let alone high-pressing.

• "We can be very proud," said goal-scorer Daniel Brinkmann, "this is the logical consequence of the progress over the last few weeks." This was Augsburg's first-ever home-win in the Bundesliga, a 2-0 win over Wolfsburg, a beacon of hope for the 18th-placed side in the dark, dank Bundesliga basement. Augsburg's secret wasn't really one in this instance. They simply ran more, fought harder, played better than the visitors who still look every bit as shambolic as they did before Felix Magath took over. Augsburg's coach, Jos Luhukay, might be a dead ringer for Charlie Chaplin but it is Magath's Great Dictator stick that's wearing increasingly thin. The players are reportedly no longer scared nor impressed by his brutal man-management. The 58-year-old will thus be forced, rather conveniently, into making more wholesale changes in January. "We need players who show more engagement," said Magath, a man seemingly on a mission to prove once and for all that the English model of the all-powerful manager is a one way-ticket to hell.